


he loves me, he loves me not

by prettylittlesestras



Category: Pitch Perfect (Movies)
Genre: Bechloe Week 2018, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-25
Updated: 2018-07-25
Packaged: 2019-06-15 23:03:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,393
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15423597
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/prettylittlesestras/pseuds/prettylittlesestras
Summary: this is for bechloe week 2018 day 2: jealousbeca is henry’s birth mom, and chloe is jealous because she thinks he loves beca more





	he loves me, he loves me not

“Shhh! Mama’s coming!” Henry tries to whisper but ends up yelling (in true five-year-old fashion) in a tone that’s far too loud for Chloe not to hear as she walks into the kitchen and sees her son and wife sitting at the table. 

“What are you two doing up so early on a Saturday morning?” Chloe asks as she kisses Henry on the top of his head and moves over to Beca to kiss her on the cheek. 

“Nothing, Mama,” Henry says so sweetly that Chloe almost believes the him. 

“We’re just hanging out. I was showing Henry a new mix I’ve been working on for him. It’s a mashup of the theme songs from his favorite Saturday morning cartoons,” Beca says as she runs her hand through Henry’s hair to calm his wild bed head. “And then, he was telling me how his teacher puts all of their artwork on the class website, so we were about to check it out.”

Chloe pours herself a cup of coffee and sits down beside Henry. He crawls into her lap as they navigate the school’s website to find Mrs. Franklin’s Kindergarten class and look at all of the uploaded artwork. If Chloe’s being honest, and with no partiality whatsoever, Henry’s artwork is the best (the kid has a way with a crayon). As they click through his portfolio, Chloe sees drawings of planes, animals, buildings, and people. There’s even one of their family that catches her eye. It’s a little boy holding the hand of a brunette woman and another woman, a ginger, standing beside them. Chloe immediately wonders why Henry drew himself holding Beca’s hand and not hers. Why wouldn’t he be holding both of their hands? Chloe feels a strange feeling in her chest, one that she can’t quite identify, but she knows she’s never felt it before. Tears prick the corners of her eyes, and she wonders why she’s letting a drawing by a five-year-old affect her so much. 

Chloe scoots out from under Henry and sits him down where she’s been sitting so she can calm herself while she pours herself another cup of coffee. She stands at the kitchen counter, staring at her wonderful son and beautiful wife and tries to rid her mind of all of her worries. She busies herself by washing the few dishes sitting in the sink, and after just a few moments more, Henry decides he’s done looking at his classmates’ artwork. He bounces in his seat, ready to let out some of his never-ending energy. The rest of the day goes on like a typical Saturday. It’s spent singing silly songs, building castles out of legos, swinging on the swingset in the backyard, and reading more books than Chloe and Beca can keep track of. 

After Henry’s been asleep for a few hours and Beca’s turning back the sheets on her bed, Chloe’s finally ready to talk about what’s been tugging at her mind all day.

“Why do you think Henry drew you holding his hand but drew me standing off to the side in his picture from school?” Chloe asks as she climbs into bed. Beca can immediately see not just worry on her face but the fact that she looks like she could burst into tears at any second. 

“Chlo, he’s five. He could barely hold a crayon two years ago; he’s just getting this whole drawing thing all figured out,” Beca says with a small laugh. “We both know it doesn’t mean anything. I promise.” She presses a long kiss into Chloe’s forehead and then a peck on her lips. Chloe pulls away and looks down at her hands. 

“You don’t think he loves me less, do you? Because you’re his birth mom and i’m just his adoptive mom?” Chloe asks quietly, tears blurring her vision as she picks at her fingernails. 

“No. I absolutely do not think that,” Beca speaks in a soft but firm tone, making purposeful eye contact with Chloe. “You aren’t ‘just’ anything. You’re as much his mother as I am. You always have been, and you always will be. I love you with all of my heart, and so does Henry.” Beca lays back onto the pillows and pulls Chloe onto her so that Chloe’s head is laying on her chest. She presses soft kisses onto her head until Chloe falls asleep, her worries not forgotten, but pushed to the back of her mind for now. 

* * *

The next few weeks are packed with activities. April and May have always proven to be Chloe’s busiest months as a teacher, and this year isn’t any different. With end-of-the-year projects and tests to grade, Chloe spends a lot of late nights at school and in her home office. She makes it home in time for dinner about half of the time, but she always feels extra guilty about being away from her family while she eats Chinese food in her classroom surrounded by ungraded homework rather than eating a home-cooked meal at her dinner table with her family. 

Beca and Henry spend a lot of time together since Chloe’s so busy and Beca’s schedule is relatively flexible. They develop inside jokes and secret handshakes, and Chloe can’t help but feel lonelier and more left out than she ever has before. On more than one occasion, she’s walked in on them whispering to one another, but they stop when she enters the room. Chloe begins to feel alone even around her family, and she knows she’s blowing everything out of proportion in her head, but the worries burn through her mind like an all-consuming fire. She sits and tries to focus on the work in front of her, but her worries take over, and it’s all she can do not to cry. Before she realizes what she’s doing, Chloe is dialing Aubrey’s number at 11:30pm on a Tuesday night while sitting in her classroom emptying a bottle of wine. 

“Chloe? Are you okay? It’s late,” Aubrey asks, sounding sleepy and alert all at once. 

“I’m sorry, Bree. I should’ve known you were asleep. You always were the first one in bed in the Bella house,” Chloe teases, Aubrey’s voice putting her a little more at ease, and the smile on her face almost audible over the phone. 

“Hey, now. Did you have a reason for calling, or did you just wake me up to insult me?” Aubrey says with a laugh. 

Chloe goes quiet, and, with the aid of the wine, her doubts and worries come flooding back into her the forefront of her mind along with a storm of tears and a sob that she tries to stifle using her shirt sleeve. She lets out a small sniffle, and Aubrey is immediately alerted that something is seriously bothering her friend.

“Chloe, sweetie, talk to me. What’s wrong?” Aubrey says sweetly but mentally working out who she might have to kill for making her best friend cry. 

Chloe stays quiet for a few seconds more, but she eventually does speak. “I’m just worried I guess. I can’t get out of my head about some stuff. I’m worried that Henry loves Beca more and that I’ll never be able to have with him what she has. I’m just jealous, I guess. And I’m worried that I’m distancing myself from Beca and Henry. I don’t want to get to a place where I resent them. I love them both so much, and I knew that I would Beca would give birth to our kids even before we were considering having them, but I didn’t expect this situation to come up, and I didn’t expect to feel like this. But I’m not his birth mom and there’s obviously no changing that, so I guess I’m just going to have to learn to live with it.”

Aubrey is quiet for a moment, taking in all of the worries flowing from Chloe’s mouth, her speech speeding up with every word she speaks. She contemplates what words to say and how to make Chloe understand them. 

“Chloe, you’re just as much Henry’s mom as Beca is. You may not be his birth mother, but you’ve loved him as much as Beca has, if not more, since the second he was born. Sometimes when we Facetime, you’re all he talks about. He tells me about the funny voices you make when you read to him, and about how you make his mac and cheese with ‘the perfect amount of cheesiness’, and how much fun he has when you sing songs in the car with him and how he loves it when you sing him to sleep. Sometimes I think that kid loves you more than Beca loves you, and I didn’t think that was possible after seeing her give you serious heart eyes for three years before even asking you out. You have nothing to worry about, Chloe.”

Chloe stops crying, Aubrey’s words impactful enough to stop her tears from flowing. Her heart feels lighter, but there’s still a feeling in the pit of her stomach that she can’t make go away. 

“I guess he does love me a lot, doesn’t he?” Chloe says sheepishly.

“Yeah, Chloe, he does. Now go get some sleep, or you’ll be worthless all day tomorrow.”

A small smile spreads across Chloe’s face. “Thanks, Bree. Love you.”

“Love you too.”

The phone call ends with a click, and Chloe packs up her things and heads home. The house quiet and dark when she gets home save for the trail of lights that Beca leaves on for Chloe when she’s out late, lighting her path to their bedroom. As she crawls into bed, she’s torn between being happy to be in a warm, safe bed with the love of her life, being stressed about the worries that have been plaguing her mind for months, and feeling guilty for all of her worrying. Lucky for Chloe, her long day and emotional night play to her advantage, and she falls asleep almost instantly, her worries subsiding, at least until morning.

As Chloe opens her eyes the next morning, she can just start to see the smallest amount of light filtering through the blinds on the window beside her bed. With it being the last week of school, students and teachers don’t have to arrive until 11am, so Chloe turns over to go back to sleep. As she turns over, she realizes her wife isn’t laying beside her, but a note has been left in her place. 

“Henry wanted to have an early-morning play date, so i’m taking him to the park to watch the sun rise. I’m leaving some toast on the counter for you. Love, Becs,” the note reads. 

Chloe can feel the disappointment all throughout her body. ‘Really? Today of all days?’ she thinks. 

Unable to go back to sleep in her current state, she puts on her pink silk robe over her pajamas and heads down the stairs toward the kitchen. And that’s when the smell hits her.

“Bacon? I thought she said toast?” Chloe asked out loud to no one in particular. As she walks into the kitchen, tears spring to her eyes without her consent, but she doesn’t mind since this time they aren’t sad tears. 

“Happy Birthday, Mama!” screams Henry with no consideration of the fact that it’s 6:30 in the morning and there should never be any screaming before 8am. He jumps from his place on the counter into Chloe’s arms and gives her a big, sloppy kiss on the lips, his mouth wet with cereal milk. 

“Thank you, sweet boy. Did you do all of this for me?” Chloe can’t believe what she’s seeing. Banners and streamers litter the walls, all looking like they’ve been cut by Henry (with safety scissors and help from Beca, of course), and they have small holes cut out of them like paper snowflakes. As she looks around, Chloe sees picture upon picture than Henry has drawn for her. Some saying ‘happy birthday’, some of Chloe holding him or playing with him, and others of things that Henry likes like trains, and puppy dogs, and lions. There’s also a gourmet breakfast being prepared by Beca, complete with Chloe’s favorite donuts and freshly squeezed orange juice. Chloe looks around the room in awe, and her worries start to melt away (much like the ice cream sundae sitting on the counter than Henry has made for her, complete with birthday rainbow sprinkles).

“Happy Birthday, Chlo,” Beca says and leans in to give her wife a kiss. Beca pulls Chloe into a tight hug and whispers in her ear, “I’m sorry we’ve been acting so weird these past few weeks. This whole crazy, elaborate 6am party was Henry’s idea, and he made made me promise I wouldn’t tell you. You know how weird I get when I have to keep secrets from you.”

Beca laughs into Chloe’s hair and starts to let her go, but she pulls her back in to say, “Plus you didn’t help us out any by walking in every time we tried to have a planning session,” and they both burst into laughter. 

Chloe squats to be at eye level with Henry. “I can’t believe you did all of this for me, Henry.”

A sly grin sweeps across Henry’s face, and he says, “Well, Mommy did help a little, but I wanted you to have the bestest birthday ever. Now wait right here, and let me go get your present.” 

He all but shouts as he runs out of the room at full speed and returns with a bright red poster board full of macaroni art. His eyes gleam with pride as he presents Chloe with her present. 

“Here you go, Mama. You always make me macaroni, so I made you some for your birthday.” 

Chloe scoops Henry up into her arms and hugs him tighter than she ever has before. “It’s perfect, buddy. How’d I get so lucky with you two? I love you guys.”

And just like that, every one of Chloe’s worries fade away. She’ll think back on this time and wonder how she ever thought her perfect, scruffy-headed little boy could ever not love her when he shows it in little ways (and big ways) over and over again. 

“I love you, too, Mama.”


End file.
